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Bradley Trainer Support in MAME 0.62
TheAlchemist writes "The Bradley Trainer was a modification to Atari's Battlezone arcade game created for the US Army to help train personel in the use of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle. Supposedly only two of these machines were built, and of the two only one of them is known to exist today. The latest version of the arcade enumator MAME (0.62) has support for the Bradley Trainer, which hasn't been emulated until now. Pictures and more information of the Atari Bradley Trainer be found on this site, and screenshots of it running in MAME can be found here."
Maybe not.... Since the work of government employees is public domain, if this was created by government employees, then at least the modifications are public domain, which seems to mean it would be legal if you own the original battlezone. If they contracted this out, which is likely, then it might be illegal.
I guess the bigger question is... who the hell is going to care enough to sue you over something like this?
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
"The other tanks do not fire at you, and the only way to end the game is to run out of ammo or shoot a 'friendly' tank or helicopter"
So, uh, this is a faithful simulation of actual American war fighting methodologies?
I mean, you are in a Bradley, flying a US flag presumably.
Right, so who would *dare* to shoot at you?
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
"enumator"?!?!?! That was painful even by /. standards...
Omnes arx vestrum sunt adiuncta nobis.
Some relevant quotes:
The Turret is controlled by a 'Star Wars' style yoke controller. It turns the guns and lets you change the elevation of the gun. . There are 3 type of weapons - 25mm cannon ; 7.62 mm coaxially mounted machine gun; TOW missile launcher with twin tubes.The upper left of the bezel hold the Range control, and also the magnification switch. The range control sets the height of the gun before you launch rockets or shoot the machine gun. The magnification switch changes your view from 3x to 10x. On the right side of the bezel, there is a switch for arming the TOW missiles. Once you fire these missiles, you can guide them with the 'laser' sights. You can steer the missile into targets, or into the ground if you overshoot the target.At the lower right near the yoke, are 7 buttons for selecting the 'AP' (armor piercing) rounds, or the 'HE' High Explosive rounds. You also have the choice of 'SS' single Shot or 'CF' Continuous Fire modes. You can also switch to the '7.62mm' machine gun also.
The TOW was a wire-guided steered missile. The fact that they programmed that in is pretty cool. Also, different ammo types? I'm impressed. Did the MG and Cannon ammo follow balistic paths?
If you'd read the actual story (imagine that?!) you'd have noticed the trainer had extra controls, and was more of a simulation than a game. The "player" did not control the tank itself, only the gun turret which would probably not excite teenagers out to whup some vector-based ass...
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
I resent your "in more important news" comment. This is extremely cool news, as the Bradley Trainer has almost been a piece of mythology in video game history. The US military hired this guy to make an enhanced version of Battlezone to simulate tank combat. This isn't an arcade game, it is a military simulator, developed by an arcade game developer. Pretty much everyone interested in classic gaming has wanted to play this, and just about no one has been able to until now.
Personally, I couldn't care less that a new version of FreeBSD came out. Go submit it as a story; don't go and use your "scoops" as troll ammunition. In short, your comment is a straight up troll and should be modded as such.
-Mani
I for one found this interesting. If you look beneath the surface, you see a glimpse into history of what was actually being used to train our soldiers during the cold war.
We may live in a world now where this level of application is laughable, but look at the fact that during the 80's this was cutting edge.
With this in perpective, this game was probably much more advanced than the training programs used by the people we were training to fight. Sure, it probably wouldn't have trained people as well as blowing stuff up in the real thing, but this was a pretty large step into modern military training.
I had never heard of this before, so I did find it worthy to be posted here. The re-relase story may not be too interesting, but the idea of early military computer based training is to me.
It just occurred to me that Battlezone had to be the very first of the "First-Person Shooter" class of games. You were in a tank instead of on foot, but it's very much the same feel.
Sigh. Has there really been nothing new in video games since the 80's? It feels that way.